New Census numbers continue to rank Maryland No. 1 for median household income — $68,080 from July 2006 to July 2007. Income rose 1.6 percent from the year before, accounting for inflation.Sumathi Reddy’s story today notes that Howard, Calvert and Montgomery counties are among the 10 richest in the nation, with Howard at No. 3 with $101,672.

Income rising, even slightly, should mean more people can afford to buy homes, particularly as home prices drop. But, as the story explains, inflation has since been eating into Marylanders’ buying power:

Demographers and economists warned that the state and national picture that emerged in two separate surveys belies the circumstances to come. The data from 2007 do not take into account the current realities of soaring food and gas costs and a slowdown in the job market.

Maryland still the highest-income state full story

Mortgage fraud, which helped contribute to the housing boom, is still going strong, according to a report out this week. The Mortgage Asset Research Institute says reported fraud in the first three months of the year increased more than 40 percent from a year earlier. (These are mortgages taken out in the first quarter that “have since been classified as fraudulent,” the company says.)Tied for third on the most-fraud list? Maryland.

Florida is first, California second and the other tied-for-third states are Illinois and Michigan.

MARI says that a quarter of the fraud reported in Maryland was in the Baltimore metro area. In Illinois, on the other hand, almost all the reported fraud originated in the Chicago area.

By “fraud,” the company means anything from false income information to doctored closing documents – whether submitted by the borrower or another party. Much of the Maryland fraud was related to tax documents and other financial information, MARI says.

Mortgage fraud on the rise full story